523G.4 Initial disclosures.

1. If an invention developer contemplates entering into a contract or if the invention developer contemplates performance of a phase covered in a contract, the invention developer shall notify the customer by a written statement. The invention developer shall deliver to the customer the written notice together with a copy of each contract or a written summary of the general terms of each contract, including the total cost or consideration required from the customer, before the customer first executes the contract.

2. The invention developer shall make a written disclosure to the customer of the information required in this section. The disclosure shall be made in either the first written communication from the invention developer to a specific customer or at the first meeting between the invention developer and a customer. The written disclosure shall contain all of the following:

a. The median fee based on fees charged to all customers who have executed contracts with the invention developer in the preceding six months, excluding customers who have executed a contract in the preceding thirty days.

b. A single statement setting forth both of the following:

(1) The total number of customers who have executed contracts with the invention developer, except that the number need not reflect those customers who have executed contracts within the preceding thirty days.

(2) The number of customers who have received from the invention developer’s services an amount of money in excess of the amount of money paid by those customers to the invention developer pursuant to a contract. The amount received by a customer reported on the statement shall only include income earned from the successful development, promotion, licensing, publishing, exhibiting, or marketing of the customer’s invention pursuant to the contract executed between the invention developer and the customer.

c. A notice appearing in substantially the following form:

WARNING

The following disclosure is required by section 523G.4 of the Iowa Code:

The person you are dealing with is an invention developer regulated under chapter 523G of the Iowa Code. Unless an invention developer is an attorney licensed to practice in this state, the invention developer is prohibited from providing you legal advice concerning patent, copyright, or trademark law or to advise you of whether your creation, idea, or invention may be patentable or may be protected under the patent, copyright, or trademark laws of the United States or any other law. A registered patent agent may give advice as to patentability and protection available under the patent laws.

A patent, copyright, or trademark protection cannot be acquired for you by the invention developer. Your potential patent rights may be adversely affected by any attempt to commercialize your idea or invention before a patent application covering it is filed. Nonconfidential disclosures of your creation, idea, or invention may also trigger a one-year statutory deadline for filing a patent application in the United States, after which you would be banned from receiving any patent protection in the United States, and would prevent you from obtaining valid patent rights in countries whose law provides that patent applications must be filed before there is a public disclosure.

Your failure to identify and investigate existing patents, trademarks, or registered copyrights may place you in jeopardy of infringing the copyright, patent, or trademark rights of other persons if you proceed to make, use, or sell your creation, idea, or invention.

If you assign even a partial interest in the invention to the invention developer, the invention developer may have the right to assign or license its interest in the invention, or make, use, and sell the creation, idea, or invention without your consent and may not have to share the profits with you.

92 Acts, ch 1114, §5; 99 Acts, ch 96, §48

Referred to in §523G.9